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Abstract:Petroleum geologists have known for 50
years that global oil production would "peak" and begin its
inevitable decline within a decade of the year 2000.Moreover, no renewable energy systems have
the potential to generate more than a tiny fraction of the power now being
generated by fossil fuels.In short, the end of oil signals the end of civilization, as we know it.

"What becomes of the surplus of human life? It is either,
1st. destroyed by infanticide, as among the Chinese and Lacedemonians; or 2d.
it is stifled or starved, as among other nations whose population is
commensurate to its food; or 3d. it is consumed by wars and endemic diseases;
or 4th. it overflows, by emigration, to places where a surplus of food is
attainable."
-- James Madison, 1791

·ENERGY IS the capacity to do work (no energy =
no work).Thus, the global economy is
100 percent dependent on energy -- it always has been, and it always will be.

·THE FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS tells us that
neither capital nor labor nor technology can "create" energy. Instead,
available energy must be spent to transform existing matter (e.g., oil), or
to divert an existing energy flow (e.g., wind) into more available
energy.There are no exceptions to
the thermodynamic laws!

·THE SECOND LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS tells us that
energy is wasted at every step in the economic process. The engines that
actually do the work in our economy (so-called "heat engines";
e.g., diesel engines) waste more than 50 percent of the energy contained in
their fuel.

ENERGY
"RESOURCES" MUST produce more energy than they consume,
otherwise they are called "sinks" (this is known as the
"net energy" principle). About 735 joules of energy is
required to lift 15 kg of oil 5 meters out of the ground just to
overcome gravity -- and the higher the lift, the greater the energy
requirements. The most concentrated and most accessible oil is produced
first; thereafter, more and more energy is required to find and produce
oil. At some point, more energy is spent finding and producing oil than
the energy recovered -- and the "resource" has become a
"sink".

There is an enormous difference between the net energy of the
"highly-concentrated" fossil fuel that power modern industrial
society, and the "dilute" alternative energy we will be forced
to depend upon as fossil fuel resources become sinks.

No so-called "renewable" energy system has the potential to
generate more than a tiny fraction of the power now being generated by
fossil fuels!

ENERGY QUALITY: The Critical Economic Variable

Different kinds of energy resources have fundamentally
different "qualities". For example, a BTU of oil (oil before it
is burnt) is fundamentally different than a BTU of coal. Oil has a
higher energy content per unit weight and burns at a higher temperature than
coal; it is easier to transport, and can be used in internal combustion
engines. A diesel locomotive wastes only one-fifth the energy of a
coal-powered steam engine to pull the same train. Oil's many advantages
provide 1.3 to 2.45 times more economic value per kilocalorie than coal.

Oil is the most important form of energy we use, making up about 40 percent, or 152 quadrillion Btu, of the world
energy supply (DOE, 1998). No other energy source equals oil's
intrinsic qualities of extractability, transportability, versatility and
cost. These are the qualities that enabled oil to take over from coal
as the front-line energy source in the industrialized world in the middle of
this century, and these qualities are as relevant today as they were then:

"If one considers the last
one hundred years of the U.S. experience, fuel use and economic output are
highly correlated. An important measure of fuel efficiency is the ratio
of energy use to the gross national product, E/GNP. The E/GNP ratio has
fallen by about 42% since 1929. We find that the improvement in energy
efficiency is due principally to three factors: (1) shifts to higher quality
fuels such as petroleum and primary electricity; (2) shifts in energy use
between households and other sectors; and (3) higher fuel prices.
Energy quality is by far the dominant factor." http://dieoff.com/page17.htm#energy
.

A BTU of sweet oil is fundamentally different than a BTU of sour
oil.Sour oil is contaminated with
sulfur and requires special refineries with higher energy costs.Some giant oil fields (e.g., Manifa in
Saudi Arabia) are "virtually unusable" because they are
contaminated with hydrogen sulfide and vanadium (a heavy metal). http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/highlights/essay_fleming/
.

About a third of the natural gas produced in the lower-48 states is known
as "subquality". That is to say, it contains nitrogen (N2), carbon
dioxide (CO2) or hydrogen sulfide (H2S) in amounts that preclude its use
without being processed to remove these contaminants or blended with volumes
of less contaminated gas. Between one- third and one-half of the discovered
gas reserves in the lower-48 states also falls into this subquality category.
Since the processing adds to the [ energy ] cost of production,
subquality gas is not typically a producer’s first choice. Once high quality
reserves are depleted, however, producers will need to implement
cost-effective methods for bringing greater volumes of subquality gas to the
marketplace. http://www.gri.org/pub/content/feb/20000224/110827/gtwnt00b-toc.html
.

A BTU of coal is fundamentally different than a BTU of wood. Coal
contains more energy per pound than wood, which makes coal more efficient to
store and transport than wood.Solar
radiation is fundamentally different than natural gas. Natural gas is fundamentally
different than oil shale, etc.Moreover, a new study shows that energy quality is still the
critical economic variable!http://dieoff.com/cleveland.pdf .

NON-RENEWABLE
ENERGY

A "non-renewable" energy source is one that can only be used
once. Moreover, physical constraints limit how quickly energy
can be extracted from a non-renewable natural resource. One can only extract
it at a certain rate, the rate peaks, and as the source empties, the rate
falls off (the "peak" principle).

Fifty years ago, geologist M. King Hubbert developed a method for
projecting future oil production and predicted that oil production in the
lower 48 states (the USA except Alaska) would peak about 1970. Hubbert's
prediction proved to be remarkably accurate. Yields have risen slightly
compared to Hubbert's original estimate, but the timing of the peak and the
general downward trend of production were correct. Hubbert showed that oil
production peaks and starts to decline when approximately half of the EUR oil
has been recovered. http://dieoff.com/hubbert.htm
-- http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/
.

The petroleum industry itself has announced that global oil production
will "peak" in less than ten years!

IHS Energy Group (formerly Petroconsultants) is the world's leading
provider of data and analysis for oil exploration and production. The company
maintains its headquarters in Geneva. It also has offices in London, Houston,
Calgary, Sydney, Perth, Singapore and Hong Kong and a global information
network. The backbone of the company is a staff of 300, embracing numerous
nationalities, cultures and professions, specializing in petroleum geology,
geophysics, petroleum engineering, economics, political science, petroleum
legislation, cartography, computer science and information technology. http://www.ihsenergy.com .

In 1995, Petroconsultants published a report for oil industry insiders
titled WORLD OIL SUPPLY 1930-2050 ($32,000 per copy) which concluded that
world oil production could peak as soon as the year 2000 and decline to half
that level by 2025. Large and permanent increases in oil prices were
predicted after the year 2000. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/98/0615/6112084a.htm
-- http://dieoff.com/page116.htm
.

In November 1997, the International Energy Agency (IEA) convened an Oil
Conference in Paris. Jean Laherrere and Colin Campbell (empirical arguments)
presented three papers on oil depletion against Morris Adelman (economic) and
Michael Lynch (technology) from MIT. Here are two of them: http://dieoff.com/page182.htm -- http://dieoff.com/page183.htm .

As a result of this conference, IEA prepared a paper for the G8 Energy
Ministers' Meeting in Moscow March 31, 1998. IEA rejected Adelman and
Lynch's arguments, adopted Laherrere and Campbell's view, and forecast a
peak in conventional oil for 2012 at 78.9 Mb/d and a decrease in 2020 at 72.2
Mb/d.

According to Richard Duncan, this represents a significant reversal of the
IEA position: "This is a real stand-down for them because until recently
they were in the Julian Simon no-limits camp." See the IEA site at http://www.iea.org/g8/world/oilsup.htm
. Figure 9 shows oil production peaks: 2000 for world excluding OPEC Middle
East, 2015 for OPEC Middle East, 2012 for world oil supply.

2005 - GLOBAL OIL
PRODUCTION "PEAK"Petroleum experts Colin Campbell, Jean Laherrere, Brian
Fleay, Roger Blanchard, Richard Duncan, Walter Youngquist, and
Albert Bartlett (using various methodologies) have all estimated a
"peak" in "conventional oil" around 2005. Moreover, the
CEOs of Agip, ENI SpA, (Italian oil companies) and Arco have all published
estimates of peak in 2005. So it seems like a reliable estimate.

Campbell and Blanchard say that Norwegian production (the second largest
exporter after Saudi Arabia) is at "peak" now and set to enter
long-term decline.

Colombian oil production appears to have peaked in 1999, but one can't be
certain for a few years. Colombia obtains most of its oil from a few giant
fields, which are now in rapid decline.

Venezuela's oil production has been by influenced world demand, OPEC
quotas, and political events. Peak production occurred in 1970 but based upon
data from Colin Campbell, the midpoint of EUR was 1998. The mature oil fields
in Venezuela have gross decline rates of 20-25%/year. Conventional oil
production in Venezuela can be expected to decline in coming years.

Mexico's oil production will probably peak this year or next at the
midpoint of depletion.

In
the 1950s, oil producers discovered about fifty barrels of oil for every
barrel invested in drilling and pumping. Today, the figure is only about five
for one. Sometime around 2005, that figure will become one for one.Under that latter
scenario, even if the price of oil reaches $500 a barrel, it wouldn't make
"energy sense" to look for new oil in the USA because it would
consume more energy than it would recover!

THE NORTH AMERICAN
NATURAL GAS "CLIFF"More than 275 North American gas-fired
electrical generation plants are planned to begin operations through 2006, up
from 158 a year ago, which would increase gas consumption by more than 8.5
tcf!

Unlike oil, natural gas cannot easily be shipped by sea. It must be
liquefied prior to shipment, and then shipped in specially designed
refrigerated ships destined for specially equipped ports, and then
re-gasified for distribution -- at an estimated 15 to 30 percent energy loss.
Moreover, natural gas cannot be easily stored like oil or coal.

Campbell says that gas production is better described as a
"plateau" followed by a "cliff" due to the high mobility
and recovery of gas. Under declining pressure, oil declines slowly as it
moves through the porespace of the rocks, but the decline of gas is a cliff
-- not a slope. The gas market gives no warning of the cliff because it is no
more expensive to produce the last cubic foot than the first. North American
production is at or near (< 10 years) its "cliff" now:

"North American natural gas has no excess
capacity. It disappeared several years ago. What we do have is extremely
aggressive decline rates in almost every key production basin making it
harder each season to keep current production flat.

"The electricity business has also run out
of almost all existing generating capacity, whether this capacity is a
coal-fired plant, a nuclear plant or a dam. The electricity business has already
responded to this shortage. Orders for a massive number of natural gas-fired
plants have already been placed. But these new gas plants require an
unbelievable amount of natural gas. [The] supply is simply not there." [
ENERGY IN THE NEW ECONOMY: The Limits to Growth, Matt Simmons; http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/research/default.asp?viewnews=true&newstype=1
]

When Canada signed NAFTA, it ceded total control of its oil and gas
reserves. Canada currently makes up about 13% of the USA gas supply.Canada is running out of gas too:

"Outwardly the production projections of the
NEB, EUB and GESI are confusing and even contradictory. But they really carry
the same message: the limits of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin (WCSB)
are being recognized. We could gradually increase consumption of the basin's
reserves over the next decade and accept sharply falling supply thereafter
(the NEB result). We can rapidly increase consumption through drilling quick,
short lived deliverability wells and live with an early rapid supply decline
(the EUB result). Or, we could redirect more activity to larger reserve plays
that require greater lead times and thereby accept an earlier, but gradual
supply decline (the GESI result)." http://tabla.geo.ucalgary.ca/NatGasCan/opipaper.pdf

Campbell says it is not practical to make up the North American shortfall
in gas by shipping it in from the Middle East (shortage of LNG facilities,
tankers, and energy loss). However, the construction of a new gas line to
Alaska and the Canadian arctic where there probably are large untapped
deposits could temporarily mitigate the North American gas cliff.

Energy analyst Stephen B Andrews
recently wrote:

"According
to the Oil & Gas Journal (8/21/00), there were 114 existingLNG tankers on January 2000.Only 8 vessels were available for
spot-market trade...that is, weren't locked in to long-term trading
agreements.

"The
28 LNG tankers now on order and being built will increase the LNGfleet's capacity by close to 1/3. An
additional 52 vessels would be required between 2005 and 2010.Combined, the total increase would be an
87% rise in LNG shipping capacity.Most of those on order today are locked into long-term trading
contracts.

"Today,
the world trade in LNG is apparently about 125 billion cubic meters -- which
would make it around 5% of world natural gas consumption (using BP's
Statistical Review of World Energy for the total sum).LNG trade is forecast to increase by 35%
by 2005.If all of that increase were
directed to North America, it wouldn't come close to covering our projected
increased consumption.

"As
luck would have it, Asia has already spoken for that upcoming increase in new
LNG.'The potential for LNG imports
in India and China is enormous,' wrote O&GJ.

"In
the face of projected rapidly growing demand for natural gas in the
electricity generation sector, plus relatively flat production in recent
times and on the near-term horizon, I wouldn't count on LNG saving North
America's bacon."

On October 17, 2000 (Reuters), a top BP Amoco official admitted that
there was a "dire need" for gas from both Alaska and northern
Canada. Forecasts show gas demand could outstrip supplies from traditional
sources by as much as 4 billion cubic feet a day within a decade! -- http://dieoff.com/nagas.htm -- http://dieoff.com/pp.htm .

NEW
CANADIAN NAT GAS STUDY SHOWS CANADA IS RUNNING ON EMPTY!!!

Study says Canadian
gas additions will come from smaller fields

By the OGJ Online
Staff

HOUSTON, Sept. 12 --
Canada had 233 tcf of nominally marketable conventional natural gas resources
as of the end of 1998 -- a 40-year supply at that year's rate of production.

However, those
resources will never be fully tapped, said the Canadian Gas Potential
Committee in a 4-year study.

[ snip ]

While Canadians have
long looked to the North and to Canada's offshore basins for large new
supplies, our study indicates that Canada's frontiers will simply supplement
the nation's core production from Western Canada.

If you thought the
worst was over, get ready. Demand is up, supply is dwindling, and new finds
are scarce. Here's how to hedge against the price hikes to come

If, like the vast
majority of Canadians, you are dependent on natural gas to heat your home,
ponder this thermostat-shattering truth for a moment. The largest natural gas
find in Western Canada in the past 25 years is now playing out in a marshy
area of northeastern BC near the Alberta border.

Some analysts expect
the Ladyfern field to gush about a trillion cubic feet (tcf) of natural gas,
which to a layman's ear might sound like a lot of burning power. But Ladyfern
probably contains just enough fuel to heat all the gas-fired homes in Canada
for a year or two at most. And it's a clear freak of nature. A typical new
gas well, in fact, produces barely enough gas to heat 90,000 homes for a
year.

Now add some more
disturbing math to this natural gas picture. Canada now produces 6.2 tcf of
gas a year, which just barely meets domestic and export demand. That
represents about one-fifth of North America's gas consumption, which is still
growing by 2% a year thanks to gas-fired electrical generation. "We need
6.2 Ladyferns a year to just keep up with gas consumption and stand
still," explains Rob Woronuk, 60, a veteran Calgary gas analyst and one
of the nation's independent natural gas watchdogs. "The really scary
part is that we are finding a Ladyfern only every 25 years."

[snip]

Just how tenuous this
math has become was driven home last month by the staid provincial regulator,
the Alberta Energy and Utility Board (EUB). Its supply outlook for 2001 to 2010
predicted that conventional natural gas production in Alberta, Canada's key
producer, would peak by 2003 at 5.3 tcf and therefore decline by 2% a year
for the next five years. Over the next decade, Alberta will have exported or
burned up about three-quarters of its potential gas reserves. It's a case of
going, going, gone. [ The rest is at http://www.canadianbusiness.com/magazine_items/2001/aug20_01_thenext.shtml]

CANADIAN OIL SANDS (BITUMEN)
Canada's conventional oil production peaked in 1973. By 1999, Canada's oil
total production was about 2.6Mb/day of which 0.5Mb (20%) was from oil sands.
The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board estimates that production from Canada's
oil sands will be extremely slow (100 to 200 years for all of it).

It has been estimated that Alberta oil
sands contain about 300 billionbarrels of recoverable oil. Syncrude is producing over 200,000
barrelsof oil a day right now:
http://www.syncrude.com/0_00.htm

Oily waste water is a byproduct of the
process used to recover oil from the tarry sands. For every barrel of oil
recovered, two and a half barrels of liquid waste are pumped into the huge
ponds. The massive Syncrude pond, which measures 22 kilometers (14 miles) in
circumference (25 sq. km.), has six meters (20 feet) of murky water on top of
a 40-meter-thick (133 feet) pudding of sand, silt, clay and unrecovered oil.

[ http://dieoff.com/page143.htm ]

To replace conventional crude -- 70 million
barrels a day -- would require about 350 such plants. If each of the 350
plants were the size of the present plant, they would require a waste pond of
8,750 sq. km. Or aboutthe half the
size of Lake Ontario.

But oil sands are less than half as
"energy efficient" as conventional oil, so perhaps one would need
700 plants and a pond 17,500 sq. km -- almost as big as Lake Ontario -- to
replace conventional oil.

The above numbers assume that all economic
"growth" stops at present levels. Moreover, that does not allow for
the increasing energy cost feedback as existing nuclear plants are
decommissioned and another 80% of our existing energy sources -- oil, gas,
and coal -- become sinks.

If global energy use continued to double
every 30 years or so, five more doublings would put Alberta entirely under
oily waste water. But even at 100% efficiency, 300 billion barrels of oil
sands would only last 12 years at 70 million barrels a day.

At, say, an average of 25% efficiency over
all 300 billion barrels, Alberta could supply about 3 years of oil for
today's economy. However, because of the decreasing energy efficiency of
existing energy sources, and because the mining of oil sands is so
environmentally destructive, it seems unlikely that all 300 billion barrels
will ever be recovered:

"Since
opening its operation in 1978 one company, Syncrude, has excavated 1.5
billion tons of so-called overburden, the 20 meters deep layer of muskeg,
gravel and shale that sit atop the actual oil sands. More soil has been
excavated by Syncrude than from the construction of the Great Pyramid of
Cheops, the Great Wall of China, the Suez Canal and the 10 biggest dams in
the world combined. Syncrude has possibly created the largest surface mine in
the world." http://sll.fi/TRN/TaigaNews/News17/Oilsand.html

"Much of
the oilsand is too deep to be reached by strip mining. Othermethods are being tried to recover this
deeper oil, but the economics aremarginal. With the strip mining and refining process now in use, it
takes the energy equivalent of two barrels of oil to produce one barrel. To
expand the strip mining operation to the extent which could, for example,
produce the 18 million barrels of oft used each day in the United States
would involve the world's biggest mining operation, on a scale which is
simply not possible in the foreseeable future, if ever. Canada will probably
gradually increase the oil production from these deposits, but until the
conventional oil of the world is largely depleted these Canadian deposits are
likely to represent only a very small fraction of world production. The
production will always be insignificant relative to potential demand.
Oilsands are now and will be important to Canada as a long-term source of
energy and income. But they will not be a source of oil as are the world's
oil wells today." [ GeoDestinies, by Walter Youngquist; National Book
Company, 1997. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0894202995 . See

http://dieoff.com/page132.htm
]

USA COAL

[ pp. 65-68, BEYOND OIL, by John
Gever et al., Univ. Pr. Colorado, 1991. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0870812424http://whipper.abebooks.com/abep/il.dll ] The
United States is in a somewhat better position with regard to coalsupply. Because the United States has
used only a small fraction of its total coal supply, a Hubbert analysis is
only speculative: so little of the left side of the Hubbert curve is known
that the rest of it cannot yet be projected confidently. Nevertheless,
it appears that coal production will not peak until the twenty-second or
twenty-third century. Could coal be the answer to "the energy problem"?
Certainly the aggressive ad campaign sponsored by the coal industry would
have us think so.

We disagree. Besides glossing over
the environmental damage resulting from heavy coal use (acid rain,
particulate pollution, carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere), optimistic
projections have been based on total coal resources and have ignored the fact
that substantially less net energy may ultimately be obtained from these
supplies. The quality of mined coal is falling, from an energy profit ratio
of 177 in 1954 to 98 in 1977

These estimates include only fuel
used at the mine, however, and do not include the considerable amounts of
energy used to build the machines used in the mines, to move the coal away
from the mines, and to process it. When these costs are included, the shape
of the energy profit ratio curve changes and starts to drop in 1967. More
important, with this formulation the energy profit ratio for coal slips to 20
in 1977, comparable to that of domestic petroleum. While an energy profit
ratio of 20 means that only 5 percent of coal's gross energy is needed to
obtain it, the sharp decline since 1967 is alarming. If it continues to drop
at this rate, the energy profit ratio of coal will slide to 0.5 by 2040.

There are several good reasons to
expect coal's energy profit ratio to continue its decline, albeit at a slower
rate. Strip mining is becoming increasingly popular, accounting for over 60
percent of total production in 1977, compared to 38 percent in 1969.
Because it involves building and operating complex machinery to physically
strip away vast amounts of overlying dirt and rock (and to put it back), it
is more energy intensive than underground mining. Increased strip mining will
therefore lower the energy profit ratio. The average thickness of veins
uncovered can be expected to continue its downward trend, and the depths at
which they're found will increase. Most important, the average heat content
of a pound of coal has dropped, about 14 percent between 1955 and 1982, and
will probably continue to fall.

Thus, just as the total content of
manganese in the crust lying under the United States does not give a true
measure of U.S. manganese reserves, simple inventories of total fossil fuel
deposits are deceptive. It will be profitable in terms of net energy to tap
only a fraction of them -- perhaps only a small fraction.

HYDROGENThe automobile industry is planning to put fuel-cell-powered
automobiles on the road by 2004. But the new cars won't be on the road for
long because these fuel cells use hydrogen via methanol that is made from
fossil fuel.

Hydrogen is not a "source" of energy -- it's an energy
"carrier" (like electricity). A chemical process known as
"steam methane reforming" produces about 95 percent of the hydrogen
used in the USA. A carbon-based feedstock (usually natural gas or coal) is
combined with steam under high pressure and temperature to produce hydrogen
at about a 35 percent energy loss. Methanol is usually produced from natural
gas or coal at a 32 to 44 percent net energy loss. http://dieoff.com/page175.htm .

But how about hydrogen from water? The Schatz Energy Research Center
recently built a hydrogen generation station for use with their fuel cell
vehicles. According to Michael Winkler, hydrogen generation is about 80%
efficient using electricity to extract hydrogen from water. The Center's fuel
cells are about 50% efficient. This leads to a total cycle efficiency of
approximately 40%. http://www.humboldt.edu/~serc/index.shtml
.

None of this includes the energy costs of either producing the original
electricity or manufacturing the equipment.Moreover, no renewable energy systems have the potential to
generate more than a tiny fraction of the electricity now being generated by
fossil fuels.

Gas hydrates resources on the ocean floor are
formed at depth where the pressure is high enough and the temperature low
enough which means the hydrates are DISPERSED and not amenable to processes
to concentrate themin large
reservoirs as happens with natural gas and oil.For this reason the cost of extracting them would be formidable
and would certainly end up being an energy SINK not a source.Jean Laherrere is well informed on this
having been involved in exploring for ocean floor gas hydrates.

NUCLEARNuclear power generation
is limited by a shortage of fuel:

"Overall,
uranium is relatively scarce in the earth's crust, at about 4 parts per
million on average. Therefore, a significant expansion of nuclear power --
even the five-fold expansion widely canvassed before the incidents at Three
Mile Island and (much more disturbing) at Chernobyl -- would out-run readily
accessible supplies. These supplies include both deposits previously
exploited but mothballed due to lack of current demand, and known high
concentration pockets that could be opened up quite quickly. Therefore, the
expansion of nuclear would highlight the need to bring rapidly back on course
the development of fast-breeder reactors and pursue fusion technology."
[ p. 90, ENERGY FOR TOMORROW'S WORLD; World Energy Council, 1993 ]

"Further, nuclear energy, if exploited only
in its present form, does not represent an exceedingly long-term source of
energy. The basic fuel stock, uranium, is in finite supply. Although there is
some debate regarding the quantities of available uranium ore, there is
general consensus that the available feedstock will fuel the current
generation fission reactors only for decades, not centuries However, it has
long been recognized that it is possible to design fission reactors in a
manner to convert 'fertile' material into a 'fissile' material, thereby
greatly extending the useable fuel supply. [Fast Breeders]"[ p. 56, AMERICA THE POWERLESS: Facing Our
Nuclear Energy Dilemma,By Alan E.
Walter, Ph.D, Forward by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Nobel Laureate and former
Chair of the AEC; Cogito, 1995; http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0944838588/brainfood.a
]

The USA, UK, and France have all
dropped their "fast-breeders" because they are "too
costly and of doubtful value"! http://dieoff.com/page155.htm

POSITIVE FEEDBACKS
-- WITH NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES
The rising energy costs (increasing extraction effort) and rising economic
costs of oil set up a positive feedback loop: since oil is used directly or
indirectly in everything, as the costs of oil increase, the costs of everything
else increase too -- including other forms of energy. For example, oil
provides about 50% of the fuel used in coal extraction. Production from
Canada's oil sands will be severely impacted by the depletion of natural gas
in less than ten years, etc.

From page 314, we find that in 1993 total USA fuel use was 4.78 x 10e24
sej (increasing about 2% per year ever since). From page 187 we find that
total net solar radiation absorption for Alaska and the lower 48 was 4.48 x
10e22 sej.In other words, the USA is presently
using fossil fuels more than 100 times greater than the total absorption of
solar radiation across the entire USA!

So-called "renewable" energy systems are evaluated differently
than "non-renewable" energy systems. In order to be
"renewable", an energy system must produce enough net energy to
reproduce itself.

A BTU of sunlight is fundamentally different than a BTU of fossil
fuel. Directly and indirectly it takes about 1,000 kilocal of sunlight to
make a kilocalorie of organic matter, about 40,000 to make a kilocalorie of
coal, about 170,000 kilocal to make a kilocalorie of electrical power, and 10
million or more to support a typical kilocalorie of human service. So when
renewable energy systems are evaluated, both inputs and outputs must be
converted to solar eMjoules (or "sej") and compared. (There are
ten different sets of equations to convert energy to sej: http://dieoff.com/emergy.pdf) The
difference between the sej input and sej output is known as the "net
sej".

Calculations show that solar cells consume twice as much sej as
they produce. http://dieoff.com/pv.htm
So even if all the energy produced were put back into production, then one
could build only half as many cells each generation -- they are not
sustainable. Even if the sej efficiency of solar cells doubled, ALL of the
energy produced would have to be used to manufacture new cells, which still
leaves a zero net benefit to society!

Traditional measures of "net energy" for solar cells may be
improving but "net sej" may be getting worse because there are ten
different sets of equations to convert energy to sej. The only way to know is
to DO THE MATH. http://dieoff.com/emergy.pdf

H.T. Odum's solar "eMergy" (eMbodied energy) measures all of the
energy (adjusted for quality) that went into the production of a product.
Odum's calculations show that the only forms of alternative energy that can
survive the exhaustion of fossil fuel are muscle, burning biomass (wood,
animal dung, or peat), hydroelectric, geothermal in volcanic areas, and some
wind electrical generation. Nuclear power could be viable if one could
overcome the shortage of fuel. No other alternatives (e.g., solar voltaic)
produce a large enough net sej to be sustainable. In short, there is no way
out.

The fact that our society can not survive on alternative energy should
come as no surprise, because only an idiot would believe that windmills and
solar panels can run bulldozers, elevators, steel mills, glass factories,
electric heat, air conditioning, aircraft, automobiles, etc., AND still have
enough energy left over to support a corrupt political system, armies, etc.

"There
is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation.
There is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize.
There is a failure here that topples all our success."
-- John Steinbeck

For
want of a nail the shoe is lost,
for want of a shoe the horse is lost,
for want of a horse the rider is lost.

Economic students are taught that banks "create" money every
time they make a loan, and that the economy is powered by money instead of
energy. The juxtaposition of these two data (the first is true, the second is
false) leads even Nobel Prize-winning economists to conclude they have
discovered a perpetual-motion machine!

No person has had a greater influence on the thinking of experts who have
become government regulators of the world's oil and gas industries than
economist Morris Adelman: "There are plenty of fossil fuels and no limit
to potential electrical capacity. It is all a matter of money."

But Adelman -- and every government regulator he has ever influenced -- is
wrong. It is a matter of energy! (The only source of energy in money is the
medium itself, and a $100 bill contains no more energy than a $10 bill.)

ENERGY LAWS:
PERPETUAL MOTION IS IMPOSSIBLE
Although economists treat energy just like any other resource, it is not like
any other resource. Available energy is the prerequisite for all other
resources. Moreover, universal energy laws tell us that the economist's
perpetual-motion machine is impossible.

To lift 15 kg of oil 5 meters out of the ground requires 735 joules of
energy just to overcome gravity -- and the higher the lift, the greater the
energy requirements. The most concentrated and most accessible oil is
produced first; thereafter, more and more energy is required to find and
produce oil. At some point, more energy is spent finding and producing oil
than the energy recovered. Thus, Adelman is wrong: it is not all a matter of
money.

Empirical studies on Louisiana oil fields suggest that oil wells and
fields are "energy losers" before they become "money losers"
and are closed down. http://dieoff.com/page197.htm

It's
important to note that the last 10% or 15% that is PRESENTLY BEING
RECOVERED is losing energy. [Ref] Thus,
if a typical field recovery is 33%, then only about 30% of a field probably
provides net energy. If so, then no more energy can
be produced from these fields no matter how high the price of oil!!

Neither capital nor labor nor technology can "create" energy
(the first law of thermodynamics). Instead, available energy must be
spent to transform existing matter (e.g., oil), or to divert an existing
energy flow (e.g., wind) into more available energy. The engines that actually
do the work in our economy (so-called "heat engines"; e.g., diesel
engines) waste more than 50 percent of the energy contained in their fuel
(the second law). Thus, Adelman is wrong again: there is a physical limit to
potential electrical capacity.

Economists everywhere are wrong: perpetual economic motion is
impossible! Imagine having an automobile with a ten-gallon tank, but the
nearest gas station is eleven gallons away. You cannot fill your tank with a
trip to the gas station because the trip burns more gas than you can carry --
it's impossible for you to cover your overhead (the size of your bankroll and
the price of the gas are irrelevant). You might as well plant flowers in your
auto because you are "out of gas" -- forever. It's the same
with the American economy: if we must spend more-than-one unit of energy to
produce enough goods and services to buy one unit of energy, it will be
impossible for us to cover our overhead. At that point, America's economic
machine is “out of gas” -- forever.

NEARLY EVERYONE IS
WRONG!
Nearly everyone in the world (all governments, and all but a handful of
scientists, etc.) has accepted the economists' perpetual-motion machine. Even
the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the USA Department of Energy
has no idea how much energy is required to produce energy ("net
energy"). Nor does the EIA have any idea how long energy can be produced
("peak")!

But even a child can understand that machines do not run on money -- they
run on energy ("Daddy's car needs gas!") -- and available energy is
a prerequisite for producing more energy.

Once the truth is told, no one will ever believe that the energy experts
in the Clinton Administration were just too stupid to see it coming; too
stupid understand these simple energy principles that can be taught to a
child...

SURPRISE!
The sudden -- and surprising -- end of the fossil fuel age will stun everyone
-- and kill billions. Once the truth is told about gas and oil (it's just a
matter of time), your life will change forever.

Envision a world where freezing, starving people burn everything
combustible -- everything from forests (releasing CO2; destroying topsoil and
species); to garbage dumps (releasing dioxins, PCBs, and heavy metals); to
people (by waging nuclear, biological, chemical, and conventional war); and
you have seen the future.

Envision a world utterly destroyed by a lethal education:

"Should
we be taking steps to limit the use of these most precious stocks of
society's capital so that they will still be available for our grandchildren?
… Economists ask, Would future generations benefit more from larger stocks of
natural capital such as oil, gas, and coal or from more produced capital such
as additional scientists, better laboratories, and libraries linked together
by information superhighways? … in the long run, oil and gas are not
essential."
-- Nobel Laureate Paul Samuelson and William Nordhaus

"The
problem is, of course, that not only is economics bankrupt but it has
always been nothing more than politics in disguise ... economics is a
form of brain damage."
-- Hazel Henderson

[Ref]There are at least two ways an oil company
can make money but lose energy: 1) financial subsidies (and thus, energy
subsidies) upwards of $600 billion a year http://www.igc.org/wri/media/lash_paris.html(or $1.5 trillion, according
to Norman Myers); 2)differences in energy "quality",
and thus, price.